STRANGE MURDER TRIAL.

Evening Star, Issue 12173, 18 April 1904, Page 8

STRANGE MURDER TRIAL.

JURY TWICE DISAGREE. A stmnge murder trial, in which Joseph Fee, a Clones butcher, was indicted for killing John Flanagan, an egg and poultry dealer of the same town, ended on March 5 in the jury at Belfast assizes disagreeing, after two attempts to reach a verdict. Flanagan, who was known to have £7O in his possession, disappeared on April 16 last. Eight months later a man digging in a manure heap at the back of Fees house accidentally unearthed the dead man's body. The chief points in the evidence against Fee—which, however, was purely circumstantial—were: That he owed Flanagan. £2 ; that he bought a " pig-killing" knife and a spade on the day of the murder; that he was the last man with whom Flanagan was seen; that he had subsequently a considerable sum of money in his possession; and that Flanagan had his throat cut vertically, as a pig is slaughtered, having apparently been first enticed into the slaughter-house and felled. Large numbers of people, unable to gain admission to the courthouse, thronged the streets, and gathered at the railway station to catch a glimpse of the accused man. As the case drew towards its . conclusion, Fee's pale, drawn face andHrembling hands bore testimony to the ordeal of the nerves that was shaking him. It was half-past four when the jury retired. After an ibsence of an hour and twenty minutes they returned, and the foreman briefly announced that they could not agree. The Judge asked if he could help" them any further. " Some of the jury are not satisfied," said the foreman. Again, on the suggestion of His Lordship, they retired. L'his time they were away half an hour. "We are still unable to agree, My Lord," stated the foreman, and the man who was fiercely clutching the rail of the dock breathed a sigh, it seemed, of relief. His .ordship asked the Crown counsel whether he wished t the jury sent back again. Counsel said he would leave the decision with His Lordship. " You have given a great deal of consideration to the case,"- said Mr Justice Kenny. "We have done our best," emarked the jury's spokesman. And so the jurors were discharged, and Fee was removed under a strong guard to Armagh Gaol, there to await another trial at the July assizes.

"The case has aroused public interest of a remarkable kind," said Mr Justice Kenny, in an eloquent summing-up. He appealed to the jury to dismiss all preconceived ideas from their minds, and proceeded to submit a series of questions. Where (he ■isked) was Fee from twelve o'clock on the night of the crime, when he was in his nother's house, until three o'clock, when he was back there again? Where did he ■ret his dinner? Did he vanish as completely from the public gaze as John Flanagan had done during the same interval? Was there no person in Clones who could tell of his whereabouts—who could say they saw him going up the street or in a public-house or elsewhere? There was not a particle of evidence to establish where he «;as during those three hours. A terrible circumstance about the case was that, although the wound in the back of Flanagan's head was, according to the doctor, sufficient to cause death, another wound had been inflicted. The windpipe was severed, and that not by a person drawing a knife across it, but vertically, in the way that swine were killed. The knife found m the grave was evidently the instrument with which the throat was cut. It was the knife of a pig-killer, and Fee was a dealer in pigs, and, above all, a pig-slaughterer. In addition to killing his own pigs, he acted as a professional pig-killer for farmers m the district. It had been said for the defence—and. of course, it was the only solution that could be put forward on be'half of the prisoner—that the murder was committed by somebody else. Did they think it was likely that" somebody, another pig dealer, enticed Flanagan into the vauphter-house and there committed the deed? Would anybody else know sufficient of the geography of the prisoner's premises fo do this thing? His Lordship commented strongly upon the fact that after Fee nad been attracted to his garden bv f he crowd and told by one of the witnesses f hat the police were looking for a child bun-d in the manure pit, he went round to the front of his house bv Fermanagh street, thus goinsj round the "two sides of t triangle instead of walking up through His own garden and into the house bv the u ■x. Iu CODclusi °n. the Judpe said he l honght too much stress had been laid on the question of the pnrse, and that the ;ase could be disposed of without- coing into the question as to whether Fee's "position had been improved or not subsequent to April 16.

The second trial will fake place at tile July assizes.